There is a well known maxim that, in real estate, the three most important things are: location, location, location. However, existing MLS (Multiple Listing Service) databases do not provide location-based aggregations of information. For example, the MLS does not provide a consolidated view of all the houses matching the buyer's criteria. This makes it difficult to quickly compare two houses. The MLS does not provide any easy way to look at relative geographical locations of two houses. The MLS does not provide any easy way to add personal notes for houses. The MLS does not provide any easy way to add any other information, such as school ratings, school districts, traffic patterns, shop locations, county and city tax rates, etc. in a geographic specific manner.
Some prior art solutions, such as the MLS, may involve databases that store location information and pictorial information together, but do not provide an integrated way of browsing and searching them. For example, to find a specific house for sale in a search, using prior art systems, a lot of text search criteria has to be entered such as city name and number of bedrooms. A list of hits is then generated. The list has to be viewed and each hit has to be clicked on to determine where a house is located. There is no easy way to search using a map based interface. At best, some systems used by Realtors might offer maps with recent sales in a neighborhood. In addition, a potential buyer cannot easily independently verify lot size. Further, there is no systematic way of recording the houses that the potential buyer has physically visited for comparison purposes.